422 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 400. 



but such subjects as the relation of soil to various kinds of 

 crops, the use of mineral phosphates, the relation of water 

 to the growth of plants, the construction of good roads, the 

 food habits of certain birds, the advantages of testing seeds 

 for purity, and many more are treated in such a way that 

 everyfarmer who reads them will feel himself better-equipped 

 for his daily duties. Altogether, this new departure in the 

 publications of the department takes a most hopeful direc- 

 tion and ought to make it stronger and more efficient. 



A Season with the Native Orchids. — II. 



A RETHUSA BULBOSA is another beautiful Orchid some- 

 _/-\ limes found in the shaded bogs of the Pine-barrens, 

 where its flowering season begins in early June. It grows on 

 mossy or Fern-clad hummocks overshadowed by the Nemo- 

 panthes and the Black and the Speckled Alders, where it is 

 not easy to find. It is of low stature, being five or six inches 

 high, and bears a single, or, occasionally, two, large^ pur- 

 ple flowers on a scape. The parts of the ringent perianth 

 are more nearly alike than those of most Orchids, the lip 

 being a little dilated and recurved toward the tip. At the 

 time of flowering, its solitary leaf is concealed in the sheath 

 of the scape, but it appears after the plant has flowered. 



The flowers ofCalopogon pulchehus are seen some years 

 by the loth of June, and they may still be found in early 

 August. They are a deep or almost purple pink, three or 

 four often expanding on the stem at once, overtopped by 

 the large inflated buds of later flowers. One of their pretty 

 features is the dilated lip, copiously bearded with pink or 

 purplish hairs, which are enlarged at the tip and stained 

 with yellow. The lip has a kind of hinge near its base, by 

 means of which it easily moves up and down, or falls for- 

 ward on the column when agitated by the wind or other- 

 wise disturbed. The flowers are bright and showy objects 

 in the damp meadows, lifted amid the grass on slender 

 stems a foot or two high, which rise from a long, linear leaf. 

 It is one of the few Orchids that find their way into the prai- 

 ries, where it is associated with Lythrum alatum, CEnothera 

 fruticosa and Phlox glaberrima. Sometimes the flowers are 

 a very pale pink, or almost white. Pogonia ophioglossoides, 

 a plant of similar habits, but less common, flowers about 

 the same time in June. The two are often associated, the 

 Pogonia sometimes forming large beds, and the pale 

 pink or rose-colored flowers so numerous as to impart 

 a rosy tinge to the grassy spots in which they grow. It is 

 a smaller plant than the Calopogon and has a smaller 

 single flower, though occasionally there are one or 

 two more on the one-leaved stem. It is fragrant, and 

 has a bearded or crested lip. Pogonia pendula, quite like 

 it in habit, but very rare, is a smaller plant, being four to 

 eight inches high. The stem bears several leaves, and 

 usually has three or four flowers in the axils of the upper 

 ones. Those I have found here have the flowers white, or 

 faintly tinged with pink. It is later than the common 

 Pogonia and appears in August. 



The Tway blade (Liparis) is represented by both species 

 of the region covered by Gray's Manual. They flower in 

 late June. L. liliifolia is the more slender and prettier of 

 the two, with more numerous flovi^ers, ten to twenty in a 

 showy raceme. They have a rather large brown-purple 

 lip, but the remaining parts of the greenish or yellowish- 

 white perianth are so narrow as to be almost capillary. 

 The pedicel is long, and the narrow, reflexed parts of the 

 flower resemble the sprawling legs of an insect. It grows 

 in ravines, in moist clay woods, and in the damp sands, 

 usually in the shade, and is quite rare. L. Loesellii is more 

 abundant, being found throughout the sand region in moist 

 soil in grassy open places. It is a stout little plant, from four 

 to twelve inches high, with rather small, yellowish-green 

 flowers, the parts of which are also narrow. The flower- 

 bearing bulb almost always has that of the preceding year 

 attached to it, surmounted by the withered scape or a 

 remnant of it. 



The Coral-roots have purplish or yellowish stems and 

 flowers and a queer mass of hard, fleshy roots resembling 

 some kinds of coral. They readily break in pieces when 

 removed from the ground. The lack of green in the stem 

 and rudimentary scale-like leaves suggests parasitism, but 

 I have never been able to trace any connection between 

 their roots and those of other plants. Fibrous roots from 

 other sources run in among their roots, but are loose and 

 seem unattached, and no haustoria have been detected. 

 Their roots are commonly well down in the soil, but not so 

 far as to be below the leaf-mold, which abundantly covers 

 the ground where they grow, so that they may be sapro- 

 phytic if unable to elaborate inorganic food by themselves. 

 Corallorhiza innata is the earlier and more slender of the 

 two, flowering in May and June. It is only occasionally 

 met with on the moist sand ridges among the Pines. C. 

 multiflora is a stout plant, with a purplish, many-flowered 

 stem, and is more often seen in the dry upland woods and 

 wooded ravines. Its large, oblong pods depending from 

 the stem soon become the most prominent features of 

 the plant. It is in bloom from midsummer till Septem- 

 ber. 



The genus Habenaria, or Rein-Orchis, is represented 

 here by ten species, all but one or two being common. 

 Those with green or greenish flowers are the earliest, 

 H. bracteata leading the way by the middle of May. H. 

 Hookeri is almost as early. It is found in the damp Pine 

 woods, and has two large orbicular or oval thick and glossy 

 leaves, which lie close to the ground. It reaches a foot in 

 height, and though the flowers are larger than most of 

 those of the green-flowered kinds, they are dull and unat- 

 tractive. It is a lonely plant, springing up from its bed of 

 Pine leaves, on which its own two shining leaves rest. 

 H. tridentata is a plant of the wet woods, with a low 

 stem carrying a single full-grown leaf and very small 

 flowers. H. virescens and H. hyperborea are taller plants, 

 with stout, leafy stems, and occur in peat-bogs as well as 

 in wet meadows and woods. 



The most beautiful of the Habenarias belong to the group 

 of Fringed Orchids, which have the lip, and often some other 

 parts of the flower, variousl)' fringed and dissected. They 

 occur most abundantly in July, but some are found the last 

 of June and in the early part of August, and all are denizens 

 of wet ground. H. ciliaris, the yellow Fringed Orchis, easily 

 takes the lead as the finest of the group, and is one of the 

 most beautiful of all our native Orchids. The lip of the showy 

 orange-yellow flowers is furnished with a long hair-like 

 fringe, and the petals are also cut into a similar but shorter 

 fringe. It delights in the wet sands, and multiplies quite 

 freely by tuberous roots, some of which attain the 

 length of three or four inches. The connection with 

 the parent plant finally withers a\vay and dies, but the plant 

 being a perennial, little groups or colonies result, with 

 the connection with the parent plant more or less trace- 

 able, or sometimes quite fresh. H. psychodes, the Purple- 

 fringed Orchis, multiplies in a similar way. It is also very 

 handsome, having a long dense spike of numerous small- 

 ish pink-purple flowers, which are pleasantly fragrant. The 

 broad wedge-shaped lip is cleft into many short divisions. 

 The plant is sometimes found in the deep shade of swamps, 

 in the midst of Mosses and Ferns, but it is oftener seen in 

 the bogs and wet meadows bordering the swamps, or grow- 

 ing amid the grass in the more open thickets. H. lacera, 

 the Ragged-fringed Orchis, is much less common, and 

 occurs in moist thickets. The greenish flowers, with their 

 narrow lip deeply parted into a long capillary fringe, are 

 always objects of interest if not as attractive as those of their 

 more brightly colored congeners. H. leucophoea is another 

 of the greenish-tinged species, but is frequently found with 

 flowers varying toward white. The fan-shaped lip is 

 copiously divided, and the flowers are rather large and 

 very fragrant. It bears a long loose spike and forms 

 a pretty object in the wet meadows. It can be grouped 

 with the prairie Orchids, and is one of our most common 

 species. It was formerly abundant in the wet prairies, where 



